1. Field of the Invention
The subject invention relates generally to musical instruments and, more particularly, to an electronic instrument and integrally-related notational scheme which facilitate ease of play.
2. Description of Related Art
Music has historically been notated using the familiar five-line staff and notes. Single notes or chords (three or more notes) may be notated. Such notation is not instrument specific. That is, the same notation may be used to play a guitar, piano, or other similar instrument when used by appropriately trained musicians. This notation, however, has been a source of frustration for aspiring musicians independent of the instrument they are trying to learn to play. Literally hundreds of thousands of people have given up trying to "read music," due to the difficulties associated with such an effort. The inventor believes that the major problems with learning to read music are twofold: the mental translation aspect of conventional notation, and the physical movement requirements of the instrument itself.
The mental translation problem for conventional notation and instruments is as follows: a notational symbol (note) is presented to the would-be musician and he or she, by prior rote memorization, must determine the name of the note that is intended to be conveyed. Having determined the intended note name by this first translation, the user still does not necessarily know where to physically find that note on his or her instrument. He or she must then mentally translate the note name into the required physical location on his or her instrument--another translation.
The second difficulty is the actual physical movement that is required of the user, after the above two mental translations are complete, to properly locate and properly activate the appropriate key or string on his or her instrument. Needless to say, being able to accomplish the mental translations, and physically execute the "instructions" in the time allocated by the musical tempo, appears impossible to many would-be musicians.
Various techniques and devices, such as chord organs, two-finger chording schemes, color-coded keys and notes, special typewriter keyboards, and tablature notation, etc., have been presented as alternatives to strict conventional instruments and notation. None of these have eliminated both the mental translational and the physical movement problems just described.
Some of these devices have used combinations of fingerings of switches or keys to cause the activation of musical events. In this context, musical events can be thought of as chords, or notes, or other musical or percussive tones. In fact, "normal" chording on a keyboard uses such "combinations" of fingerings to generate chords. However, chord organs were probably the first products to use activations of "shorthand" combinations (selected from rows and columns of buttons) to cause the production of musical chords. This method required many buttons to do all 12 root names and a few chord types for each root. One implementation of this method required 12 rows of buttons and perhaps 7 buttons per row (84 buttons) where the rows represented root names such as A, Bb, C, C#, etc., and the buttons in the row allowed the user to then select one of 7 chords such as major, minor, etc. by depressing one of the associated buttons.
Later, organ manufacturers used a standard keyboard and another "shorthand" method to produce chords. These so-called "two-finger" chord systems required the user to press one key (the root note) to generate major chords, plus from one to three additional keys to generate the other chord variations such as minors and sevenths, etc.
A third shorthand method used by Suzuki in its Omnichord product uses 12 rows of 3 buttons. But instead of having individual buttons represent individual chords as in the chord organ, this product uses the binary combination of the three buttons to create seven chord possibilities. Although this is more efficient than having 7 separate chord buttons per row, it adds the complication and difficulty of having to memorize the 7 coding combinations and requires the user to search the 12 rows for the appropriate root position.
In all these cases, and in all cases of which the inventor is aware for one-hand chording techniques, the inventions have at least two things in common: all use a distinct row position or key position for each of the 12 root names and all are very difficult to use due to the resulting physical movement and mental translation required on the part of the user. Either a full row of buttons has been used for one root (chord organ, Omnichord, etc.), another row for the next root, etc. or, in the case of a keyboard, a root key was used for C, another key for C#, etc. This causes the user to have to "search" (visually and then physically) for the root position first, and then remember the fingering codes for the desired chord. This has made the musical success of such systems very limited, although the "two-finger" system is widespread in terms of being incorporated into products.
Although these techniques are touted as simpler than conventional keyboard chord fingerings (due to consistency of fingering over the 12 roots), the methods are still flawed by the most problematic barriers to playing music--physical movement and mental translation. The prior art approach of making all 12 distinct positions for root notes (and associated chords) available appears to be based on a very erroneous assumption; that is, that all chord types must be available in all key root positions at all times. In fact, this inventor has found that in popular and jazz music, the occurrence of chord types is very predictable, and that many chord types typically do not occur except in very specific situations.
There has been little or no effort in the prior art directed at simplifying the translation from notational symbology to finger movements on the instrument. Certain simple geometric figures have also been used in the past for instructional purposes. One is in training of beginning trumpet players. At least one instructional trumpet book shows three circles under notes of a regular staff with one or more of the circles darkened. The instructions convey to the student that the forefinger, middle finger, or ring finger should press on a valve of the trumpet if the circle corresponding to the finger over that valve is darkened. Once the player learns the fingering-to-note relationship, the three-circle symbol is replaced by the conventional notings on the staff.
A second use of geometric instructions that the inventor has found is in the technical reference manual for a three-button PC mouse. Throughout the manual there are pictorial references to three small squares where one or more of the squares are darkened to convey to the user that he or she should press the corresponding button(s) on the mouse to cause the desired action. After learning the desired process, the user discards the reference and "clicks" by memory.